This is amazing work, Chad. You've obviously put a lot of thought into these projects, and your skills are most impressive. I can't wait to see them 100% finished!

Let me take this opportunity to encourage the rest of the board. You've all proven yourselves to be resourceful, skilled craftsmen. Don't be reluctant to undertake a scratchbuild. You learn so much about structure, planning, fabrication techniques and materials, and finishing. The results can be astounding.

Thanks Outback!! The comments received from the board members means a lot. I agree with you in regards to scratchbuild. A lot of the work I've seen here over the years is extremely impressive. The scratchbuilding process can open up a world of opportunities to you. Does take patience but the end results are great and rewarding. Even if people like or dislike your projects.

I started off with customizing vehicles and some figures years and years ago. After a long while of industry not manufacturing vehicles that I wanted to see from Sci-fi to military (much like the foriegn military equipment BTR's, BMP's, T-72 - T-90 series tanks) I took it upon myself to start constructing my own vehicles. Scaling and reference drawings for real military vehicles takes me a little more time. But the ones I found easiest are sci-fi vehicles; I come up with a scale in my mind about how big they would be in real life and scale them down/sketch them on paper from there. They're Sci-fi so they can be whatever you want it to be with no worries; its your imagination at work. Granted I am still learning, but, it is a lot of fun building your own vehicles from raw styrene sheet plastic. When raw styrene glues (model masters glue); it bonds really well.

I hope that one day I can move into molding/casting to really expedite building and duplication of the projects I undertake.

I look forward to the feedback. For these and my BTR project. The BTR project was my first undertaking at creating a real life Russian military vehicle. It was started after the Sci-Fi projects.

Thanks again everyone!

Chad

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I know what you mean about waiting for someone to produce a vehicle. After years of waiting, I finally decided to build my own Airwolf from scratch. Turned out pretty good, and I learned a lot about building vac-form subjects. Now I feel more comfortable with them. Latest project on the workbench is a 1/18 Colonial Viper from the old Galactica series. I'm hoping to get back to it this week.

Have you considered CAD dwgs for your projects? I find it's a whole lot easier to do it in CAD nowadays. If I feel like I need to adjust the scale or make alterations to the drawing all I have to do is scale it up and print out the templates. And it makes geometry a whole lot simpler, too.

"Have you considered CAD dwgs for your projects? I find it's a whole lot easier to do it in CAD nowadays. If I feel like I need to adjust the scale or make alterations to the drawing all I have to do is scale it up and print out the templates. And it makes geometry a whole lot simpler, too."

You know what that's something I wanted to do for a while. Everything I do is on paper and takes a long time and waist a lot of material when mistakes are made. My wife does drafting and she said she's going to take the BTR-60 and other models and place them in AutoCAD.

Hopefully this will work so I more rapidly reproduce vehicles.

Thanks for suggestion because that is a great idea.

Chad

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Another simply amazing piece. I think I need to go back to school and learn how to make custom vehicles after seeing these. Nothing really new to add here as far as comments go, but overall it is a fantastic look with fantastic execution.

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SOoOOOOoooOOOooooo Pretty so very very pretty.

question
Are they sturdy? Will they hold up to being played with?

Oh yeah, these are very sturdy. At one point in time I've accidentally kicked the tank and it held up. I reinforced the interior frame using different thicknesses of sheet styrene as well as styrene I-beams. Plus, sheet styrene bonds strongly together quickly, especially with the model masters glue.

The heavier drop ship (20 lbs), I used glue and screws to hold it together. I'm still looking for the photos of the interior shots of the dropship and tank.

I admit, when I decided to build these vehicles, I wanted these vehicles to be sturdy and hold up to being played with .

The BTR-60 is just as sturdy but I am more careful with due to all the small exterior pieces on the hull of the vehicle.

Thanks again everyone! I'm looking forward to finishing these soon!

Chad

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Holy Hell.

That's really all I am going to say.

Holy hell.

Also: AMAZING, AMAZING work.

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Very impressive scratch building sir! That is a huge undertaking in any scale but 1:18th makes it all the more inspiring.

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Thanks again everyone! I found my WIP pics. I have to scan them and I'll post them soon. Plus found pics of another scratchbuilt transport. It was my first, so it's not the best but it was my first major build.

Ford Prefect,

You should take a look at the custom built BTR-60 APC I built. I think its on page two or three. It's my latest modern military project.

Great job on those VAMPs by the way! The seams are so well hidden!

Thanks,

Chad

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I have some more pics of the vehicles to include WIP for the Dropship and new images of another vehicle.

Problem is I had to scan them into my computer so took a while and quality of pics differ. Didn't realize that some of these projects started in December 2002! Wow, time flies by. The vehicles should've took no more than a month to complete. But, life intervened. So now I'm trying to get back into the grove of things. The H.A.H.T and the BTR-60 are my most current projects.

I also added a picture of another first scratchbuilt vehicle; the Hover Transport (HT). Ehh, it was okay for my first project. Was supposed to work with the Dropship.

Hover Transport
Features: rotating cabin turret and main turret, main turret elevates +/-, cabin seats 3 figures, carries 10 to 20 figures, top doors on rear open, rear door slides open, hatch door for crew compartment opens, turret door opens.



You can scroll through the different pictures to see all them when you click on the images above or below.

Dropship pics (continued)

I'm adding some other pics of the Dropship. They include additional views and WIP images. Again, not posting all of them but you can scroll through the images. Down side the images are not organized properly.



There are 28 pics for this one. The other photos on the first page are from separate album.

Thanks to all for the input!!

Chad

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More and more impressive with each additional photo. The details of the interior are great.

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